Smashwords: Smashwords to Distribute to Blio and Public Libraries Via New Distribution Agreement with Baker & Taylor

Smashwords: Smashwords to Distribute to Blio and Public Libraries Via New Distribution Agreement with Baker & Taylor

A Major Shift in Book Publishing

February 29, 2012 By Dan Poynter

There is a major change going on in book publishing. Some publisher see it and are scared. Some are trying to change. Some do not even see it yet.

Eyeballs are moving from print to online. We see this in newspapers and magazines as well as books. Advertisers are following the eyeballs and are shifting their promotion money from print publications to the Web. Subscribers are reading online.

Newspapers are downsizing and going out of business. Magazines are closing down. The driving force is economics.

The old larger publishers have been the Big Six in New York. The new larger publishers will be Amazon, Apple, BarnesAndNoble.com, and Google. These resellers of information (nonfiction) and entertainment (fiction) are becoming publishers. They are inviting authors to cut out the publishers and deal directly with them.

Where is publishing going?

Read the rest of the story.

Dan Poynter is "The Book Futurist." Read his blog at http://ParaPub.com.

Big Publishing’s Optimism About the Future is Tanking

Here’s a classic snapshot of an industry that is realizing its world is changing, that the big players may not survive and the people they employ don’t possess the skills necessary to compete in the new world.

The interesting thing about disruptive change is that it’s happened to lots of different industries before and the overall pattern is relatively predictable (although details and timing are not) but none of the top people in an industry being disrupted ever seem to believe it can happen to them. Denial is death under those circumstances.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY AND WATCH THE VIDEO.

Amazon.com Now Sells More E-books than Print Books

In an announcement that will likely generate cheers as well as fears, Amazon.com says that it now sells more Kindle e-books than print books—paperback and hardcover—combined. Since April 1, Amazon says it has sold 105 Kindle books for every 100 print books, soft or hardcover, including print titles that do not have Kindle editions. The figures do not include free Kindle titles.

The Kindle was introduced by Amazon.com in 2007; by 2010 Kindle e-books sales had passed hardcover print titles and by late 2010 Kindle e-book sales had surpassed paperback titles. Amazon introduced the Kindle With Special Offers, a Kindle 3 with ads on its screensaver, for $114, which Amazon says has now become the bestselling Kindle device.

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said, “Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books. We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly—we've been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for less than four years.”

 

From PW Weekly

 

Barnes & Noble Sales Jump Led By Digital Products

Sales of e-books through BN.com are more than double that of sales of all print books and B&N estimated it has a 25% share of the e-book market. Same store sales of BN.com jumped 64% in the quarter, to $319.4 million driven by sales ok Nooks and e-books. Asked when the unit, which lost $50.5 million in the quarter, will make money CEO William Lynch said BN.com will be profitable faster than originally thought. He wouldn’t say if BN.com will be profitable in fiscal 2012, but said losses will be significantly minimized.

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Don't be left behind. eBook Covers and Formatting Service can take your book into the digital age for a very reasonable cost.

Indie Authors Blow Away Traditional Gatekeepers and Storm the Castle of Newspaper Bestseller Lists

By Steve WindwalkerEditor of Kindle Nation Daily

Call it the "Paper Curtain," if you like.

But like the Berlin Wall, it's coming down.

As a result of the Publishing Perestroika that has been unleashed by readers and writers connecting primarily around Kindle content in the short span of just 39 months, the walls that have kept self-published and ebook authors from being included in prestigious newspaper bestseller lists will come crashing down this week.

Tomorrow, USA TODAY will roll out its weekly list of the top 150 bestselling books in the U.S., just as it does every Thursday.



But for the very first time, USA Today announced today, its list for the week ending February 6 will include bestselling self-published direct-to-Kindle authors like Amanda Hocking. Hocking's books currently rank #3, #11, #12, #27, #37, #41, and #46 on the Kindle Store top 50 bestsellers, and "the three titles in her Trylle Trilogy (Switched, Torn and Ascend, the latest) will make their debuts in the top 50 of USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list," wrote USA Today's Carol Memmott in an article entitled "Authors catch fire with self-published ebooks."

Read the rest of the story at http://kindlehomepage.blogspot.com/2011/02/publishing-perestroika-indie-authors.html.

E-book Sales Up 164% as Other Trade Segments Fall

From Publishers Weekly

E-book sales jumped 164.4% in 2010, to $441.3 million, at the 14 publishers who report sales to the Association of American Publishers monthly sales program. Sales in December rose almost exactly the same amount, 164.8%, to $49.5 million. Sales in all other trade segments fell in the year with the exception of downloadable audio which had a 38.8% gain to $81.9 million.

 

Sales in adult hardcover fell by 5.1% at the 17 reporting publishers, while trade paper declined 2% at the 19 houses that report.Mass market paperback sales fell 6.3% at the nine paperback houses; in children's hardcover sales decline 9.5% and paperback 5.7%. Fourteen publishers reported sales to AAP.